Tuesday, December 23, 2003

1916 Results - Stovey elected in closest voting ever

In the closest balloting in the 19-year history of the Hall of Merit, Harry Stovey was elected, outpointing Joe Kelley 667-665. It was a wild election, 11 candidates received a first-place vote and no candidate was named on every ballot. 44 voters sent in ballots for the 2nd consecutive year. Stovey was in his 18th year of eligibility and will be 60 in December. He’s the 3rd oldest player selected to the Hall of Merit (Joe Start was almost 70 and Cal McVey was a month shy of his 64th birthday when inducted).

The previous closest election was Bid McPhee defeating McVey 751-747 in 1913 (McVey was elected a year later). The only other election decided by less than 10 points was in 1906, when Al Spalding defeated Ezra Sutton by 8.5 points. Sutton was elected in 1908.

Kelley nearly closed a 21-point gap from the 1915 election. Stovey’s two extra first place votes (9 vs. 7) sealed the deal for him, despite his being left off three ballots (Kelley was left off two ballots).

There was a lot of movement this year Joe McGinnity moved up a spot into 7th (he and several others passed Sam Thompson, who dropped off 6 ballots entirely, and fell from 7th to 10th place).

Bob Caruthers vaulted from 14th to 8th place, being named on eight more ballots this year. Frank Grant moved from 10th to 9th (despite dropping from 356 to 352 points) and Thompson rounded out the top 10.

Lip Pike also made a run, moving past Hugh Duffy, Jimmy Ryan and George Van Haltren into 11th place.

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And the precedents auger well for Kelley. I think the average Joe would be shocked at Joe Kelley going in ahead of Willie Keeler, Elmer Flick and the Iron Man, not to mention the idea of Jimmy Collins trailing any (much less all) of them. But of course the average Joe would probably have difficulty understanding Stovey going ahead of any, or all, of them.

What does the future hold for Charlie Bennett? I think the guys with 42-41-40-39 ballots look good. They can all move up a slot or two pretty easily. Bennett, with his measly 33 ballots, faces a tougher task. Just moving up 33 ballots might not be enough, and I don't know how many of the other 11 have him within shouting distance.

For those who were keeping score on the fly, how far behind was Stovey? His supporters hung back, I thought he was a goner for sure. But according to my scoresheet he made up 29 points on the last 5 ballots posted, 56 on the last 10 and 116 on the last 20. So I guess he was behind by at least 110 at his trough. Did you Stovey supporters get together on this?

After Young and Clarke are elected, I'm interested to see where the Stovey supporters go. The consensus top 5 in 1918 and 1919 may be a combination of Kelley, Flick, Keeler, Bennett and Collins, unless Jimmy Sheckard gets some big newbie support.

Next year, Bennett will probably fall significantly, as he will have few "elect him" extra points, and he is already off several ballots. In fact, his 3 14th place votes will probably also be nonexistent next year. However, he has enough loyal supporters (tied most 1st place votes, most 2nd place votes) that he could get elected in a weak year.

From the continuing series "Devin Wastes Time At Work", here's some HoMer Similarity Scores. (For the players this time.) I added the similarity scores of every HoMer who showed up in a player's 10-most-similar. I know about all the problems with Similarity Scores, but this is presented just as a curiosity. Use of any of this information in actual arguments is at your own risk.